This is an ambitious attempt at breathing life into the
RTS genre from a few
years ago. However, the result is a bit of a mess despite being quite
interesting. The tactical gameplay seems to be standard - build up a
powerful military force and send it against your opponent before they
can do the same. The faster you can manage this the better. The game
innovates in the battlefield layout. It is played on on spherical
planets (quite beautifully rendered) that you can rotate the camera
around. Sometimes there are even multiple planets. To facilitate battles
there are a myriad of options and units. Vehicles, bots, aircraft, sea
ships, orbital ships, space ships plus factories and installations. It
is even possible to build a giant Deathstar-like laser. The complexity
overwhelms and there is little guide on how it is used. Many times I
found myself pausing the game to look up online how to use the special
feature of a unit. Games run from 10 minutes to over 2 hours! This game
is just too much, and not well explained.

Planetary Annihilation is out on the Steam
store for PC, Mac and Linux
at US$29.99. It has been bundled many times.